


Does the road not traveled go to the same place?

by startrekto221B



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Kid Mycroft, Kidlock, M/M, Mycroft Feels, Mycroft IS the British Government, Mycroft-centric, POV Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock is the older brother, Teenlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-08-05
Packaged: 2018-04-09 22:32:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4366697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startrekto221B/pseuds/startrekto221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft tells Greg they can only be together on one condition. If he is Sherlock’s younger brother. Free of the responsibilities and the sense of order he’s had to instill in himself after all these years looking after Sherlock, he could have easily come to share in the detective inspector’s affections; but not otherwise. How can Greg prove the brightest man he’s ever met to be wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The idea was just eating at my head for the longest time...what if Sherlock was the older one? What would that mean for them?

Mycroft looks up across the table, clasping his hands on the desk, leaning forward slightly. There is something in his eyes, he knows, something in the way his own mouth barely twitches to smile or frown, something projected by his very being that lets others know he is not a man to be trifled with. How then can Greg Lestrade, a mere police detective, so easily hold his gaze? Only a handful of people can. Fewer still can speak to him while doing it. And there is only one, the man in front of him now, that can make him feel that he is not in fact in control of the entire situation.

Gray hair. White in some places. The silver fox. Mycroft says what he says next with every bit of severity that he is capable of mustering, hoping it will be enough.

“We cannot see each other.” 

“What do you use this office for usually? I noticed you have two. There’s the one next door. Then this one. Why have two?” Greg asks.

“This is the office in which I meet foreign officials. Sign official documentation. The other is for meetings of a more domestic nature.” Mycroft explains.

“Then you put us in the wrong office.” Greg says plainly.

“Oh?” Mycroft raises an eyebrow, he is rarely, rarely ever accused of being wrong, certainly not to his face.

“This is what me and the wife used to call having a domestic. Before the divorce and all. Should be in the domestic office.” Greg goes on, “Unless. You still think of us as two foreign entities. You do, don’t you? I see.”

“There have been chancellors and kings and prime ministers and even presidents sitting in that chair who have more easily accepted ultimatums from me.”

“How many have you slept with?”

“To date. None.”

“Good. I’m glad that’s not the kind of foreign policy business you were running.”

“You must understand, detective inspector,” Mycroft straightens his tie and begins again, “This arrangement cannot continue.”

“Back to detective inspector are we?” Greg sighs.

“Greg,” an idea pops up in Mycroft’s mind, “There is one condition. If you meet it then we can be together. If you cannot, you will acquiesce. Do you accept?”

“Yes. Yes of course I accept.”

“Shake my hand,” Mycroft extends his right arm across the table and briefly grasps that of the only person he believes could have possibly made him happy.

“Anything.” Greg looks hopefully, “Name it.”

“For all the years of my life I have been responsible for the security of others. But first and foremost I grew to be this way because of my brother Sherlock. I worry about him, constantly, even now. As I worry about the citizens I maneuver, the secrets I keep and the country that will never know I kept it safe. I have trusted you beyond precedent so that you may know this.” Mycroft marvels at the fact that Greg has still not broken eye-contact, “However, there is a line I cannot cross. Because of who I am. Hence we will part ways.”

“You had a condition.”

“Yes. We can be together if I never became what I was. If Sherlock were the older brother.”

“That’s impossible. That’s not a condition that’s mad--”

“You agreed. We shook on it. I suppose that is the end of that.” Mycroft says, making a real effort to say it coolly.

“What if he was the older one?” Greg shrugs angrily.

“What do you mean?”

“Listen. Just think about it.”


	2. Chapter 2

_August 19th, 1978_

Eyes stare at him through the bars of the crib. Big, blue-green eyes. Unblinking. But Mycroft doesn’t cry. Mycroft never cries. After all, he knows who this is. He doesn’t know his own name yet but he knows who this is. He barely has a grip on what’s going on. He’s just now piecing together what the sounds these creatures make mean. But he knows, instinctively, who this is.

 

“I want to play with him.” Blue Eyes says.

“You can hold him later.” a soothing voice says in the distance, “Bertie’s sleeping now.”

“He isn’t!” Blue Eyes says loudly, Blue Eyes is always saying things loudly, Mycroft notices, “His eyes are open.”

“Sherlock Mother’s tired now, could you play quietly for a bit?”

“Why do I always have to play quietly? It’s always ‘the baby’s sleeping’, ‘the baby needs to be fed’. ‘Bertie this’ and ‘Bertie that’...” Blue Eyes says petulantly, “If you two had to go and have another baby you should have at least had one that was interesting.”

 

All this noise has upset Mycroft. Because it’s loud and for some reason it frightens him. Soothing Voice comes and picks him up and cradles him to her chest and rocks him back and forth. It feels better. It’s even better when she starts to sing.

 

“That’s my song…” Blue Eyes says, sulking in the distance.

“If it’s your song,” Soothing Voice says, “You should sing it to Bertie.”

Blue Eyes perks up at this, but still feigns reluctance, “Silly baby. Probably can’t even understand it.”

“He likes the way it sounds.” Soothing Voice explains.

“Why should I sing to Bertie anyway?” Blue Eyes asks.

“Because you love him.”

Blue Eyes seems utterly unconvinced, but sings anyway. Mycroft doesn’t know what music is at this point, but doesn’t think Blue Eyes harmonizes well with Soothing Voice. Nevertheless, he likes the sound, he likes it so much that when Blue Eyes reaches out a hand to pet his head, he grabs on to the littlest joint and grips it tight.

***

_September 8th, 1979_

 

Albert Edward Mycroft Holmes. So Bertie. His name is Bertie. That is not however, what Blue Eyes, who is known more generally as Sherlock, calls him. Sherlock uses the third name. Mycroft. For no reason other than to drive the parents, Soothing Voice and Big Briefcase, crazy. They call him Bertie, Sherlock calls him Mycroft. Understandably, he is more than a bit confused. Which one is really my name? Which do I answer to?

 

Every morning however, before Sherlock leaves the room with his colored bag and disappears for most of the day, he stops by the crib and says, “Bye Mycroft.”

 

When he practices crawling on the floor, Sherlock says “Here Mycroft.”

At times when Sherlock is at home he uses the baby and the dog as props in his pirate fantasies, strapping the eyepatch on Mycroft and making him the second-mate, Sherlock says, “Mycroft hoist the sails! Mycroft turn to starboard! Mycroft turn to port!”

Before they go to bed Sherlock says, “Good night Mycroft.”

 

This makes a strong impression. Stronger to him than the gently cooing of “Bertie? Sweetheart!” and “There’s my strong boy, Bertie…” every so often from Soothing Voice and Big Briefcase. Entities that Sherlock, who is quickly becoming the largest figure in the events unfolding in front of him, calls Mum and Dad.

 

So when in the end he himself finally learns to speak, having perfected the enunciation patterns demonstrated by all three members of his family, he stuns all three into silence.

 

“Sherlock Bertie needs to sleep now,” Mum says.

“My name is Mycroft,” he says, his first words since birth.

Mum drops the dish she was washing and it lands in the sink with a clatter.

Dad drops the knife he was using to cut meat.

Sherlock simply stares at him, and his eyes widen.

 

They make him talk more after that. They marvel. They exchange whispers of things like “even sooner than Sherlock”. They seem shocked. They seem worried.

 

When they put him to bed he asks Sherlock, “Was that wrong?”

Sherlock only smiles, “No. No. I had hoped that you’d be like me.”

He’s only two years old. But he knows already that he isn’t quite like his rather tempestuous, wild older brother. What he doesn’t know yet, however, is that he isn’t just as clever as Sherlock. He’s far, far beyond him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft grows up idolizing his problematic older brother.

_January 9th, 1981_

The world is still large, but it’s growing smaller. Mycroft can look at things and figure out how they work. He can write his own name perfectly, he can read chapter books with ease. Yet his parents aren’t as surprised as any normal parents might be, after all, Sherlock was exceptional too.

 

Mycroft knows their parents are ordinary right from the start. And he doesn’t resent them. He really doesn’t. But the only one in the house of significant interest is Sherlock. It’s always been Sherlock. Mycroft can look at almost everything and figure out how it works. Except it seems, his older brother.

 

Sherlock’s behavior has little to no pattern. Some days he’ll be with Mycroft all day, take him by the hand and show him things, play “adventure” with him in the woods or by the lake, or that game of deductions that he made up himself. Other days he’ll scarcely give the other boy a look. It’s a fickle thing, Mycroft interprets, Sherlock’s affection. But then all of Sherlock’s behavior is oddly temperamental. Somedays Sherlock will complain and fret about being bored, kick whatever he sees in sight, once even going so far as breaking a window. Other days he’ll stand stoic by said window (recently repaired), and play his little violin to an imaginary audience, sit in Mum’s lap--though at ten he’s way too old--and let her pet his beautiful curly hair, take Dad’s big briefcase from the trunk of the car to the house when he comes from work. Mycroft doesn’t know what to make of it.

 

Mum and Dad are worried about it too sometimes. He’s heard Mum wonder in a whisper whether there’s something wrong with Sherlock, but Dad always dismisses it as childish whimsy and says he’ll grow out of it. Mycroft however is too smart to be swayed by either argument. There’s nothing wrong with Sherlock, he thinks, there’s something wrong with the world. And the world is bound to stay the same, so Sherlock will always behave this way.

 

He feels it too, Sherlock’s inherent dissatisfaction with life, and he often thinks of his brother’s outside as being much like his own inside. Quite a complex thought for a four year old, he knows, but he knows by now that he’s special. And not just because Sherlock has told him so many times. But of his own volition.

 

Therefore, he thinks, by watching Sherlock, he grows to understand himself. It’s purely analytical, he likes to believe, his seeming hero-worship of the older boy. Yet it’s not. It’s really not. Mycroft has long ago outgrown his mother’s kisses and his father’s piggy-back rides and all the warm and cuddly parent-baby things he’s still technically the right age for. He can’t however outgrow the way Sherlock ruffles his hair during his good moods and fondly murmurs “Ginger”. And though he can read just fine himself, he doesn’t reject Sherlock when he offers to read-aloud murder stories he nicked from the public library.

 

His mother finds it cute that he follows Sherlock everywhere. He thinks of it as simply a necessity. After all, who else is his equal? They have no one. No one but themselves. They are both brilliant. Mycroft comes off as cold for a child and Sherlock is the only one who warms him. Sherlock is a windstorm and Mycroft is the only one that can withstand him.

 

“Before I knew your name I called you Blue Eyes in my head,” Mycroft confesses one day as their walking down a river bank, pretending to be explorers charting territory.

 

“Really?” Sherlock looks back, “Watch out. Low branch.”

 

Mycroft ducks, “I find that I cannot wait to start school.”

 

“Don’t be so excited,” Sherlock explains, “It’ll be too slow for you. You’ll be surrounded by idiots.”

 

“A pity.” Mycroft comments.

“A real pity.” Sherlock agrees.

 

Mycroft likes the good days. The days when his brother looks at him like he’s the only thing worthwhile. He dreads the other days, the days when he remembers that Sherlock is unbelievably fickle. The days that make him fear that despite all they share Sherlock doesn’t truly care for him at all. It infuriates him too, that he wants Sherlock’s attention this way. It’s annoyingly typical, he notes, for the younger brother to want to be like the older one. And in all other things he is anything but typical.

 

On one of these bad days Sherlock’s mood gets so bad that he strides off towards their little stream all by himself. Barely having acknowledged Mycroft, who had waited patiently for him all day, pretending to read books he had already read cover to cover, when in reality he was watching the news with his mother on telly. Mycroft is so perturbed by this that he follows him, and realizes almost immediately that it was a bad decision.

 

“Wait for me!” he calls out to his brother.

 

Sherlock doesn’t even turn back.

 

“Wait!” Mycroft runs along the banks of the rushing water, ducking under the overhanging branch, “Sherlock!”

 

“Get away,” Sherlock says simply, glancing behind at last, “I don’t wish to see you.”

But the distance between them is closing now, so Mycroft takes another few steps, not really looking in front of him but into the blue eyes that are his first memory of the world. He takes another step and he slips. As he slides into the icy, rushing water he wishes he wasn’t so fat and that he could swim. He calculates that he will not be able to fight the current and that he is likely to drown. Being in the bad mood that he’s in, Mycroft thinks, it’s unlikely that Sherlock will try to save him. It’s unlikely that Sherlock will even turn around. But he’s wrong. For the first time in his life he’s wrong.

 

Somewhere in Sherlock’s mind a switch clicks as he hears his brother scream as he slides through the mud and into the water. He jumps in the water after him and for a moment both are rather desperately fighting the current until Sherlock, the taller of the two grabs hold of a branch and pulls them both to safety. He thumps Mycroft back a few times and watches as the smaller boy, still a baby really, spits out a bellyful of water.

 

“You’re too chubby to float, Ginger, scientific fact,” Sherlock says shivering.

“I mis-miscalculated.” Mycroft pants, pondering his near-death experience.

“Let’s just stay here a bit, dry off” Sherlock says, “Mum will kill me if she thinks I took you wading in this river.”

“You’re not mad anymore.”

“If by mad you mean crazy I always will be. If by mad if you mean angry then I’m finished, yes.”

Mycroft laughs nervously, “Mum thinks there might just be something wrong. With you I mean.”

“So do you. That’s why you came after me.”

“When I fell. I did not expect you to turn back.”

Their eyes meet for a second. Mycroft wonders what Sherlock will say but his racing mind for once has no answer.

Sherlock shakes his head and droplets of water that were clinging to his curls splatter on the ground, “Just remember from now on, alright? No matter how far I go, if you need me I’ll always turn back.”

 

Mycroft never forgets.

***

_November 9th, 1985_

 

 

Mycroft is eight now and Sherlock is fifteen. There’s nothing very interesting about being eight, Mycroft thinks, as school is still boring, people are still stupid and besides the reading he does on his own time he has very little to live for. Being fifteen on the other hand seems like quite a wild ride.

 

They don’t play together anymore. Not really. Sherlock leaves the house by himself to undisclosed places for long amounts of time. He grows his hair out a little, parties on occasion and Mycroft catches him once with a cigarette in his hand.

 

“Highly injurious to health.” he says immediately, leaving out the ‘Mum will kill you’ that was on the tip of his tongue.

 

“Why do I care that it’ll kill me if it’s the only thing that makes me feel alive for once?” Sherlock shrugs nonchalantly, “Ponder me that.”

 

Mycroft does ponder. And he worries about him. Constantly. His brother was always so good-looking and fair, with those rich chocolate brown curls and those piercing eyes, that when the first signs show up on his face Mycroft wonders how everyone else is stupid enough not to notice them.

 

“You smoke far too much.” Mycroft tells him.

“I am aware.” Sherlock says, “Leave it be.”

The ‘don’t tell Mum’ is implicit.

 

At school Mycroft is lonely. There is no one like him. He is living in a world of goldfish. Yet he slowly comes to a point that he doesn’t mind. Finding peace with what he is. A peace that after all these years he fears Sherlock has never made. He tolerates a lot from these kids. Their stupidity. Their continued poking fun at the fact that he’s chubby and ginger. Their general existence. There is one thing however that he will not tolerate. And that is any word said about Sherlock.

 

“Are you a druggie too, like your brother?” Freddie Milton says, "I've seen him. His sunken eyes. Ever seen him shoot up?"

 

Mycroft doesn’t know how hard he can punch until he does it. He’s never done anything purely motivated by emotions before. It’s...strange. Funnily enough, it’s Sherlock they call down from his class to take Mycroft home early after this incident. Mycroft doesn’t know how he can tell him.

 

They don’t talk as Sherlock walks him home. They don’t talk as much nowadays as they used to. It’s only when their a block or two from the house that Sherlock sits him down on a bench and sighs.

 

“You’re supposed to be the logical one. The iceboy.” Sherlock says, “I’m the problem child.”

“It’s not black and white. I did not like what he said. I attempted to rectify the situation.”

“You gave him a black eye.” Sherlock laughs, “What did he say?”

“He said you did drugs.”

“He didn’t lie.”

“It wasn’t him I wanted to punch, I suppose,” Mycroft rationalizes quickly, “I think that maybe it was you. I was allocating my frustration unto a different subject.”

“Go ahead then.” Sherlock says, “Hit me.”

“I cannot.”

“Why?” Sherlock asks, “I’m right here. You want to punch me for smoking? Go ahead, Ginger.”

Mycroft gulps, he hasn’t been referred to like that in a long time, “I cannot hit you.”

“Therein lies the problem.”

“Where’s the problem in that?”

“Sentiment is a chemical defect found on the losing side.” Sherlock says.

“Even so, I need you to turn around. Stop whatever this is. It’s heinous.”

“It’s not that easy. It’s easy to save someone else from drowning, not yourself. Especially if a part of you wants to.”

“Will you at least make an effort?”

Sherlock nods slightly, “But I can’t promise anything.”

***

_December 24th, 1991_

 

Mycroft is fourteen when he finds Sherlock smoking in an alleyway on Christmas Eve. He’s known, he’s known for a long time, years even, that Sherlock has broken his promise. He’s tried to ignore it, push it under the rug, but he can’t deny what he sees before his eyes. It's dark now, but the moon's out, and everything's grimmer than it has any right to be. 

 

“Mum and Dad are waiting. You never spend Christmas at home.” Mycroft says, looking at his brother, the way he’s leaning up against the brick of the wall, wrapped tightly in a fine black coat, smoke wafting through the air.

 

“I never get off.” Sherlock has the nerve to light another one right in front of him, “This government job is utterly tedious.”

 

“What other drugs do you do?” Mycroft demands, “One is cocaine.”

“You’re getting clever, Ginger.”

“Don’t call me that if you won’t listen to me.” Mycroft says scathingly.

“Why should I listen to you? I’m older. You should listen to me.” Sherlock says.

“There is something very wrong with you.”

“Nonsense. You’ve never thought so before. We’re not normal. Nothing wrong with that.” Sherlock looks at him curiously.

 

“I dislike your long absences.” Mycroft confesses, “I worry.”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t.” Sherlock straightens up.

“You said you quit. You have always said that and you always do this. It’s a consistent pattern that shows no sign of breaking. You have no self-control and you never have had any.” Mycroft says evenly.

“Come here.” Sherlock says.

He’s tired, Mycroft really is. He’s been all alone at school in the years since Sherlock went off to Uni. Just waiting for the day he too could be recruited for a government post like Sherlock has been. He’s been biding his time submitting anonymous tips to the local police station, solving the occasional unsolvable math riddle. He’s been waiting for an escape.

He strides towards Sherlock, his mind bent on straightening up his twenty-one year old brother who is still very much the windstorm he always was. He meets those  familiar blue eyes once again, and sees a new idea in them.

“Here,” Sherlock lights a cigarette and hands it to Mycroft, “Join me.”

 

Mycroft does.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft joins and leaves Sherlock's way of life.

  _April 2nd, 1992_

It’s a different sort of life, living with Sherlock. They’re mostly on the road, smoking cigarettes and walking along dark streets. Sherlock buys him a coat and shows him to how put up the collar so he looks cool. He ties a soft purple scarf around his neck just the way his own is and takes him to clubs and parties where he smokes and dances and calls Mycroft to join him.

He knows it’s wrong. Deep down. But Sherlock’s magnetic pull is something that defies all reason. He blushes when Sherlock asks him if he’s ever kissed anyone.

“Feels wonderful,” Sherlock said, taking the cigarette out of his mouth and crushing it under his feet with a satisfying crunch, “Addictive though. Like anything else.”

He’s high, Mycroft can tell, and it’s right about this time of night that he usually starts getting him home to a motel where they can sleep and still show up for work tomorrow. Sherlock still works for the government on a consulting basis, so he can basically wake up anywhere with a computer and contribute. Nowadays though he’s been getting Mycroft to do a third of the work, spending the rest of the day getting a head start on his usual night activities.

They’re halfway there now. To the place they stayed last night, sleeping together on a large bed that reminds Mycroft of their parents’ bed and how very far they are from home. How very far they are from what he was supposed to bring Sherlock back to.

Sherlock pauses in the alley to light another but pauses to ask him another question, “If you did. Would it be a man or a woman?”

“A man.” Mycroft says, he’s sure of it, “But I probably wouldn’t be any good.”

“Why do you say that? It’s easy.” Sherlock says casually.

“Find that hard to believe.”

He’s more than a bit taken aback when Sherlock kisses him. It’s strange, Sherlock’s long fingers on his face, the heat of his mouth, the way they must look like mirror images, coats and scarfs and all. He should feel that this is wrong but it’s not. It’s not sexually charged at all. Sherlock is simply doing what he’s always done. He’s showing him how.

“That should be enough for you to master the technique.” Sherlock remarks when he’s finished, as if he’s just given his only brother a mathematics lesson rather than kissed him.

“Data is data,” Mycroft says, and he really should be more disturbed by what happened, but this is how their relationship is.

In the days that follows he finds Sherlock is shirking more and more of his work. And he’s picking up more and more of the slack. Finally a day comes when Sherlock suggests that Mycroft simply replace him at the government agency and Mycroft accepts. After all, he doesn’t mind the work. It’s quite distracting. What he doesn’t realize however is that without any work at all Sherlock is slowly losing himself. He’s losing his grip on sanity.

It’s one night too many Sherlock comes home too high to reason. One night too many Sherlock doesn’t come home at all and when he does he smells like strange men and alcoholic drinks and Mycroft knows people have touched and had their way with the brother he loves more than life itself. One night Mycroft decides he loves his brother more than he loves being his friend.

“You’ve got to stop.” he says finally.

“This again?” Sherlock scoffs, “Thought you weren’t a boy scout anymore.”

It hurts him to say this, it really does, “I’m not a boy scout. But I cannot be you.”

“Then don’t.” Sherlock waves him away, “It’s not like I needed my little brother tagging along with me anyway.”

“Are you blind? You’ll kill yourself. Don’t you get it?” Mycroft pleads, sinking to his knees in desperation.

“So what if I do?” Sherlock shrugs, “Who the hell would care?”

Me, Mycroft wants to scream, I would care. Blue eyes. Those bloodshot blue eyes. Staring up at him in a casket. A chill goes down his spine.

“You aren’t taking drugs again.” Mycroft says.

“Really? How do you plan to stop me?” Sherlock looks a little amused, but then again everything amuses him or enrages him when he’s high.

Sherlock carries a knife in his pocket when he goes out, just in case there’s trouble. But now it’s on the dresser. Mycroft hurriedly puts together a plan. It’s a tad dramatic for his taste. And he’s only half sure it’ll work. But it’s the kind of plan that’s perfect for Sherlock. He picks up the knife and for second he sees the look in Sherlock’s eyes and knows Sherlock thinks he’s going to cut him. _Wrong_.

Mycroft holds the knife up to his own neck, “Promise me. Promise me you’ll change or I’ll--”

He looks worried now, but still sounds brash, “You wouldn’t.”

Mycroft pushes into his own skin slightly and lets out a drop of blood, “I will, Sherlock.”

Sherlock can’t look at him. They’re quiet for a second. He can hear their labored breathing. Mycroft’s heart rate has skyrocketed. He won’t be able to hold the act together much longer.

“Okay,” Sherlock sighs, “What do you want from me?”

“Get a job. Any job. Something you like. Stop getting high.”

“Put it down.” Sherlock says.

Mycroft drops it on command.

Sherlock picks up the knife, stares at the bloody tip as he sits on the bed, “Get out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm half tempted to repost or retag this whole thing as Holmescest as that relationship seems more compelling. But I also think it might be lovely if it's Mystrade parallel with Johnlock. I don't know.


End file.
